Child workers should be vetted every 3 years, committee told

PROPOSALS over the vetting of people working with children should include a requirement that people are re-vetted every three years, an Oireachtas Committee heard yesterday.

Children’s rights organisations and sports groups were invited to make submissions yesterday on the heads of the National Vetting Bureau Bill and while the proposed legislation was broadly welcomed, serious concerns were also raised.

Both the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) and Barnardos said clarity was needed over the use of certain terms in the bill relating to the “ad hoc” nature of interaction with children through employment, and what was meant by “regular, ongoing, unsupervised access” to children.

ISPCC director of advocacy, Caroline O’Sullivan, said that increased resources would need to be provided to the Garda National Vetting Bureau to deal with increased demand, and that private residences would need to be included in the draft bill as possible places of work. Both the ISPCC and Barnardos said many people, through volunteering at sports clubs and their job, could be vetted a number of times, while other people were not.

The draft bill also includes provision for the use of “soft information”, but both the ISPCC and Barnardos said the list of bodies with such information needed to be disclosed, and Barnardos chief executive, Fergus Finlay, said it was essential the HSE was on that list.

Ms O’Sullivan said she would prefer a three-year re-vetting provision with scope to vet in the interim if relevant information about an individual came to light.

As for volunteers and access to sensitive information held by bodies such as Barnardos, Mr Finlay said every person working with children needed to be vetted, stating: “The truth is that a groomer only needs ad-hoc access. A groomer only needs occasional access to begin the development of a relationship.”

The GAA said it had 30,000 of its members across different jurisdictions vetted since 2009 and that it had developed an online vetting service for its members, operating through Croke Park.

In its submission, Swim Ireland said anyone within its organisation, including volunteers, should be subject to vetting and that soft information needed to be readily available were an individual to move between organisations.

Caroline Counihan, legal adviser with the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland , said that “reliable, accessible data is vital” in its work, particularly as it receives information relating to 1,500 victims at its 15 centres around the country each year.